Did you see Mayor Oscar Leeser’s column in the El Paso Times this weekend?
It has not even been a year and El Paso Electric is at it again. Executives have come forward to City Council once again to request that we grant them the ability to increase their rates on the local rate payer.
. . .
I do not believe that large salaries to executive officials’ pay are grounds for an increase. In 2016, the total compensation of the CEO was over $3 million.
I also do not believe that compensation of over $2.5 million to their 11 board members, as well as expenses associated with travel for their directors, is reason to raise rates. The high level salaries and compensations of their directors are all part of their cost of doing business and used in their rate of return calculations. Keep that in mind.
Three million bucks for the CEO? She must have a hell of a fastball. What’s her time in the forty?
This year El Paso Electric has almost record stock prices and profits, yet residential customers stand to see a 9.1 percent increase on their bill, and once again, solar users are being targeted separately with threats of higher rates as well.
El Paso’s private sector is in a hurry to make money, making sure they squeeze the last bit of juice out of the lemon before it runs out.
But everyone, including our “philanthropists,” are looking to cash in, quick, before El Pasoans feel the squeeze and wake up from their stupor.
I wonder, with all the “development” taking place, and a population growth rate that’s flatlined, when rents will fall? The developers can’t just keep building forever, unless there’s some way to make a buck out of tax incentives.
It would be nice to see someone take a longer term view, and not just worry about cheating the citizens today.
I’m going to miss Mayor Leeser.
Too bad John Falvey isn’t running. If he won, they wouldn’t have to change the photos at city hall or the website.
I too will miss Mr. Leeser…
Reading this abundance of fiction was rather entertaining but now it’s time for a reality check. It was almost amusing that Leeser bitches about the rate increase considering that during his hellish reign, that we 915ers are continuing to pay higher taxes, higher fees and a much higher debt. But l guess that’s ok until SOMEONE ELSE outside of our corrupt city government wants us to pay more for something. Hypocrisy x 14. Ok class, here’s a little history lesson: The reason why Leeser won was because we believed he was an anti-establishment (anti Ortega) candidate. Hell, even l was hoping he would win even though l technically voted for that weasel Ortega because l didn’t want Leeser to get all full of himself after winning by a billion votes. Well, the wolf in sheep’s clothing won by a billion votes anyway. Even though Leeser never mentioned how he would like to govern this town, we thought that we could trust him because he did, after all, purchase a zillion signs saying that he wants our vote so he must be a good guy. And then we discovered that he’s really a “bad boy” by singing the praises of all of this “progress” (out of control spending on all of this crap that we don’t need) that was being made. Remember that Leeser was so proud of El Paso because SOME OTHER TOWN next to ours ( l think it was Santa Teresa, NM ) was getting 300 new jobs that had something to due with manufacturing telecommunications wiring – something like that. That is truly the spin of all spins, but that’s our “Bad Boy” for ya. But now during the final two minutes of his Mayoralship, (the damage has already been done) NOW he’s kinda, sorta pretending to be fiscally prudent. l can’t wait for that weaselly pile of crap to go bye bye.